Alone, We Crumble
by ActuallyRedEyes
Summary: The Ceremonial Battle always could have ended another way, but the truth of the matter was that no one, least of all the Lost Pharaoh, could have been prepared for the consequences.


A/N: A request based on the idea of what would have happened if Yugi had lost the Ceremonial Battle. Me being me, I made it incredibly angsty, but to be fair, its hard for me imagine how this scenerio could have gone any other way.

* * *

Atem wouldn't blame his partner for what happened that day, and he never would, even if he ended up forgetting it entirely. It had been his pride on the line and he'd fought with everything he had regardless of the end result. It was a gamble gone sour and it left them both with guilt for the destiny that didn't come to be.

Yugi had apologized relentlessly for not being able to give him his rest, no matter how many times Atem tried to divert blame away. It wasn't his fault.

It would never be Yugi's fault. He remembered the growl of frustration as Malik turned on his heel and stormed out, closely followed by Rishid and his worried sister. Atem clearly recognized the look in his eyes the young man had given him before dashing out of sight. Malik wanted his family's freedom from their ancient oath, a path that his partner's victory would have opened for them.

And now…

 _'You should have lost.'_ What was he supposed to do now?

The wadjet eye engraved into the gate dimmed in finality, and his apparition faded steadily with it, returning to his cold home of three thousand years. The air was silent and stagnant as Yugi paced forward and restrung the Puzzle back through the chain around his neck, leaving the others where they lay. Atem wasn't sure what to say; their entwined destiny had led up this point, only to be denied. They left the underground in silence, a thread of shared guilt following behind them. At first it was manageable, returning back from Egypt after their departure, until a misworded comment every now and then set them back again. Atem had seen the fire in his partner's eyes, and wanted his success more than anything, even if it meant putting aside his pride. _'The pride that cost you your rest,'_ he couldn't help thinking to himself, _'The pride that traps Yugi in your shadow.'_ The next time Yugi was challenged, Atem couldn't interfere.

Yugi didn't need him to win.

He was the King of Games and Atem was to make sure he knew it. But as time wore on, his worries only grew, along with the desperation to hide those worries.  
Nothing would stay the same. Nothing except for himself.  
The world was moving, and the friends he treasured so much were growing, maturing, while he was stuck in place. The bonds they shared never disappeared, but their lives changed as they went out into the world, achieving their dreams.  
As Yugi Mutou progressed into his late twenties, Atem assumed control less and less, not only because his partner's life was so far out of his control that he didn't feel he had the right, but that Yugi's age cut a schism in his ability to do so. And every time he looked at that mature face and remembered the much younger boy who solved his Puzzle so many years ago, a nameless fear stirred in his gut that could not be suppressed.  
With every passing year, that feeling only worsened, until he could no longer deny it.

Yugi would grow old and leave him.

And Atem would remained trapped in stasis. With both a form and a mind that wouldn't degrade. He was afraid because he could feel Yugi's body aging around him when he wasn't. He could feel the way the man was slowly deteriorating; then he coped by locking himself away in the room of his mind sometimes so Atem wouldn't be able to hear those concerned probing thoughts of his partner's edging across their link. But Yugi was happy. He found love and had children, though none of them could truly hear Atem's voice as little more than the vaguest whispers on the wind, but his partner was happy. And that's really what mattered.

That's what he convinced himself of, that he could endure anything as long as Yugi was happy. He was wrong.

When Yugi's health began to fail, Atem lost what composure he had left. He couldn't watch, anything but that.  
Yugi knew that, because he knew Atem better than anyone else alive, and removed the Puzzle from around his neck and handed the artifact to another before the end. Atem kept quiet for a long time after that.

The Millennium Puzzle passed into Jounouchi's safekeeping, as the only other person able to communicate with him with some level of stability. But Jounouchi wasn't young either, he wouldn't be able to hold the Puzzle for a considerable length of time. Crushed once again, he had no choice but to be ferried along yet again. Like a broken jigsaw, Atem lost himself in bits and pieces every time another death came into his knowledge, and a thick numbness sank into his mind like lead.  
By the time the Puzzle was passed to Yugi's children, they could barely hear his voice at all, or feel the connection. Atem was more of an heirloom than a companion, and no matter how hard he railed against his walls, it hardly seemed to change a single thing. And what little of a bond there was faded until there was nothing left to cling to, pounding on that invisible wall for _someone to please hear him!_ And even then, those screams slowly quieted down to desperate whispers against the wall between him and the world, until it quieted entirely. Years passed into decades, and knowledge of Atem steadily changed from history to rumor, and then faded out of remembrance completely. New generations came and went, and eventually the Millennium Puzzle left the hands of their family line, but where it went Atem couldn't begin to guess.

With each fracture his heart suffered, the labyrinth within the Millennium Puzzle expanded tenfold, until it existed beyond uncountable dimensions. Atem had crouched by the door for a long time, but his stubbornness broke and the all-too familiar sensation of isolation settled into his mind like an old friend, eager to welcome him back into its embrace. Eventually, the young man simply accepted it, rising to his feet and treading aimlessly into the endless maze of the Puzzle, almost anxious to lose himself there. One day it would consume him completely in its clutches, and then take from Atem the memories he'd sacrificed so much hardship to obtain.

Maybe one day he'd simply fade away.

Maybe then he wouldn't have to remember anything at all.


End file.
